


February Daphne

by grayclouds



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Implied Cannibalism, Implied Torture, M/M, Toxic Dynamics, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 11:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13857006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayclouds/pseuds/grayclouds
Summary: Victor likes to push—sometimes Yuuri pushes back.





	February Daphne

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a very small, short experiment i've been playing around with. the relationship between victor and yuuri in dancing daffodils is so loving that i felt like writing the opposite for a change; hence the similar flower-motif in the title.
> 
> i might add a follow-up in the future, but for now i'm listing it as completed.

“Start over,” Victor says, standing cross-armed on the edge of the rink, discerning eyes glinting against the light reflected from the ice below like the body of a blade in moonlight.

Yuuri feels that blade press against his neck with every breath.

“I need a break,” Yuuri replies with aching lungs, sweat slipping down his forehead into the lines between his brows, over the side of his nose.

Victor’s mouth thins. “Start over.”

The sweat drips down the edge of Yuuri’s nostril onto the tip of his ice skate, and with a painful inhale and a strain of muscles he begins anew.

When the music repeats so does he, a broken record starting to splinter into even smaller pieces. His limbs are heavy, too slow, too fumbling to approach the elegance of which this piece was performed to him by someone much more talented. The lines he carves below him are starting to become erratic, trails of airplanes that have fallen, are falling, and he falls.

Blood slips across the ice.

“Yuuri,” Victor sighs, and he hears him coming in the grace of his skates that slide towards him with a single push of his legs, circling around him where Yuuri sits with blood cradled in his palm.

Victor kneels down beside him, fingers colder than Yuuri’s pulse wrapping around his wrist and pulling up his injured hand to look. “It’s just a small cut.”

“I need a break, Victor.”

Victor’s eyes dart up to his face, and Yuuri almost flinches.

“You think too little of yourself.”

“And you too much,” Yuuri mutters as he allows Victor to pull him up, his grip squeezing around bone. It lingers and Yuuri almost does not want to look up at Victor’s expression, not when he is this vulnerable, but not looking would be a far worse show of weakness.

So he looks.

Victor’s face is a frozen surface, holding dark waters beneath where an unseen creature dwells. Sometimes it comes up and Yuuri catches a glimpse of it flitting by, like now.

“You are always so fragile,” Victor says softly, pityingly, coldly.

Sometimes Yuuri imagines taking an icepick to it and splitting it open; what would he see dwelling in the depths?

Instead he rips his bleeding hand from Victor’s fingers, gladdened by the way his eyes narrow.

“I’m taking a break.”

Victor tilts his head the slightest bit, disdainfully. “Did I give you permission?”

“My hand is bleeding,” Yuuri says, aware he is raising his voice and doing so right in Victor’s face but this façade cannot last and his patience in indulging Victor’s game is wearing thin. “I’m done.”

He feels Victor’s sigh on his lips, slow and weary, as if he were dealing with a petulant child. “You have yet to ask me.”

Yuuri’s mouth opens and closes slowly, and Victor leans in the slightest bit, his height suddenly making Yuuri feel—not small, but caged, cornered.

“Ask me.”

It is absurd, but he doesn’t think to disobey. Why would he? It is such a trivial thing. That does not mean he likes asking, that does not mean that the urge to  _break-claw-rip_ isn’t a constant cacophony in his head, that does not mean that the violence inside him is tempered.

But this isn’t the right time and for now, he will submit.

“Can I take a break?” Yuuri asks.

For a moment he thinks he sees the corners of Victor’s mouth quirking up into a smile.

“Yes.”

As Yuuri slowly turns away from Victor and skates toward the exit of the rink, the image of the almost-smile stays with him, burned into his retina.

He does not know whether it was just another reflection of the frozen surface, or a glimpse of the creature underneath.

* * *

“His skin is lovely,” Victor murmurs in Russian as he sharpens his knife, ignoring the muffled whimpers of the pitiable thing tied to his chair. “Not like yours, dry and rough.”

He kneels down in front of it, trailing the tip of the knife absently over his prisoner’s forearm, light enough not to leave any marks. “Then again, I have no use for your skin, do I?”

The cloth balled up between his teeth prevents the man from speaking.

Victor stares at him for a moment, crouched down in front of him, before wordlessly standing up again and ripping the cloth out of his mouth.

“I-I’m sorry,” the man sobs. “I’m s-so sorry, I just, I just wanted an autograph!”

“Had you knocked on my door and asked, I would’ve gladly obliged,” Victor replies airily, twirling the knife around in his grip. “But trespassing is  _very_ rude.”

The man peers up at him through his tear-stained lashes with a fear that reeks.

“Are… are you going to k-kill me?”

Victor observes the man for a moment. Likely younger than him—perhaps around Yuuri’s age—but built thicker, especially around the waist and thighs. It is a consideration.

“No,” he decides.

The man relaxes visibly, until Victor suddenly turns away from him and walks into his kitchen, gathering some choice ingredients on the counter.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Among them are oysters, acorns and masala.

Victor smiles.

“I’m making you dinner.”

* * *

Yuuri stands at the edge of Victor’s balcony, taking in the air with a deep breath through his mouth and almost feels it freeze inside his lungs. His fingers cling to the metal railing, steadying him before he has to take the plunge back into the depths.

There’s a knock on the glass door behind him and when Yuuri turns around to look he sees the creature looking back at him.

“Dinner is served,” Victor says and retreats back inside.

After a moment’s hesitation, Yuuri follows him down the stairs, through the living room and into the dining room.

“Sit.” Victor points to the chair adjacent to his at the length of the table where Yuuri left his glass of white wine half-empty.

He does as he’s told, gaze drifting over his almost clinically pristine surroundings. Not a scratch or stain on the dark wooden table, not a speck of dust on the furniture, not a stain on the intricately patterned white-and-gray wallpaper.

It makes Yuuri want to take a hammer to the delicate china cabinet sitting across the room and scatter the pieces over the floor.

Just as he considers the merits of such a plan, the scent of meat floats in from the kitchen from where Victor emerges seconds later with two plates of finely garnished roasted beef topped with gravy, shiny underneath the ceiling lights and teasing at the faint hunger in Yuuri’s stomach.

“Bon appétit,” Victor says with a smile that Yuuri imagines hides the sharpness of his teeth, setting down the plate in front of him and taking a seat across from Yuuri’s. If Yuuri were to stretch his leg just a bit, he’d be able to touch Victor’s underneath the table.

After they both cut into their meat at the same time he pauses to watch Victor bite into his, the juiciness of the beef and the gravy leaving a thin trail on his mouth that glistens until he sweeps it away with his tongue, licking at the corner of his lower lip and sliding across the rest of it. Yuuri is riveted by its movements—he wants to taste it,  _he wants to tear into it_ —until the tongue disappears back into Victor’s mouth, revealing gleaming teeth instead.

Bait.

“You’ve been distracted,” Victor says, long fingers curling around the stem of his wineglass and carrying it to his lips that press against its rim, leaving a perfect mark after he takes a sip and lowers it back down onto the table.

Yuuri feels the sudden and inexplicable urge to reach over and smash the glass against Victor’s flawlessly carved mahogany table and bite into his lips.

“You’ve been distracting me,” Yuuri responds, finally having a taste of his beef, taking his time to chew and savor the taste before swallowing it down.

Victor smiles mildly. “Not on purpose.”

“Isn’t this a distraction?”

“This,” Victor says in a manner that seems to specifically indicate  _us_ and not just  _dining together_  as Yuuri meant, “is our spare time, and we can spend it however we like.”

“You’re not concerned it might negatively affect my performance?” Yuuri questions lightly, trying not to reach for his glass.

“If I did, you wouldn’t be here,” Victor answers simply.

There’s a bang. Loud and sudden, coming from somewhere below them.

Yuuri glances at Victor’s expression, finding it shuttered, attention aimed firmly on his porcelain plate as he busies himself cutting another piece off his slice of beef. “What was that?”

“Just some vermin.” Victor dips the bit of meat in a trail of gravy lying on his place, unshakably composed. “How is your hand?”

Yuuri thinks about what might happen if he reached over and stabbed Victor’s hand with a fork. The urge of it is always there, just barely suppressed, just barely hidden. He supposes they have that in common.

“Fine, thank you for asking.”

Victor looks up, meeting Yuuri’s gaze and the corners of his mouth quirk up, eyes gleaming with amusement as if he just looked into Yuuri’s head, saw his thought and found it endearing.

“Sometimes I can’t tell whether you like me or despise me,” he says.

Yuuri smiles back at that, but it feels stretched too wide on his face, too hungry. “Me neither.”

Another bang.

This time, Yuuri is fairly certain it’s coming from the basement. Victor does not make any remarks or offer any further explanation, however, so Yuuri draws his own conclusion.

When he entered Victor’s apartment a small half-hour ago, he saw small blood splatters on one of Victor’s shoes lying discarded in the closet that he had likely forgotten to lock, the light falling in through the gap in the door highlighting the unmistakable marks on gray leather.

Yuuri recognized it because he has seen it many times before.

Bloodstains are so difficult to wash out.

“Do we have another guest?” he asks, speaking into the empty space between them and Victor goes very still.

It’s fascinating to watch, the way his fingers wrapped around silver cutlery pause right above his plate, the features of his face that were relaxed at first shuttering into a thin mask while the creature watches him through the veneer of two beautiful blue eyes, gleaming through the surface from the bottom of the lake.

Yuuri has not stopped eating, and meets the stare with a smile, reaching for his wine to wash down the heavy richness of his beef. He does not look away from Victor’s face as he gently places his glass exactly where he took it from on the table, his tone nonchalant as he speaks again.

“Perhaps we should invite them to dine with us?”

For the first time, the creature smiles back.


End file.
